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Making expenditure work for the poor: ActionAid International has been working with its partners around the world to promote public accountability and pro-poor governance. ActionAid International has stringent accountability systems in place for its own work. Our internal Accountability, learning and planning system is a step in the direction of ensuring greater accountability to stakeholder groups, and increasing transparency of financial/funding decisions and potential. It aims to help poor and marginalised groups take control of, and lead, their own development. ActionAid International India has supported social audit processes where for example in 2001, 3,000 villagers from 9 villages audited all public development works undertaken in the past three years in the presence of government bloc and district level officials and community representatives. ActionAid India has used this approach with its partner organisation, Bharatiya Gyan Vigyan Samiti, in the past with our work following the Orissa cyclone, where 'people's hearings' were used as a way for all the community to have access to information regarding the food-for-work programme, thereby ensuring transparency and a means of curbing corruption. ActionAid International Guatamala, promoted initiatives in establishing social audit processes that prevent, sanction and eradicate corruption in the management and administration of State institutions - through support for the Coordinadora Sí ¡Vamos por la Paz! (COVAPAZ) and its member organizations. The COVAPAZ Project aims to increase citizen awareness, knowledge and capacity in presenting proposals, political management and advocacy, as well as strengthening their capacity in conducting Social Audits. 450 members of 155 different civil society organizations received training on Social Audit methodology. The project activities strengthened organizational capacity, the ability to create proposals, political management and advocacy within communities and society in general which in turn contributed towards the process of establishing proactive citizenship participation. Secondly, project activities promoted accountability by State authorities and citizen control mechanisms to ensure efficient and effective management of public funds. Finally, communities have experienced benefits in management, reorientation and resolution. ActionAid International has conducted budget analysis with participatory approach in different fields in three countries Kenya, Brazil and Bangladesh. The approach of the project in three countries is more or less same, that is, to create some capacity of budget analysis in the areas where the analysis is being implemented. In all three countries, the project demonstrated that budget analysis, as well as being a powerful tool to improve education outcomes, is an effective tool for improving governance, and making government more responsive and open. As a tool that gathers information on people's rights and choices, and mobilizes communities to hold government and education professionals to account, budget analysis can also be a first step towards rights-based advocacy on education and other sector issues. ActionAid International believes that Participatory budget analysis and such participatory monitoring tools are critical in holding government to account. All political processes are translated into the budget through financial allocation of resources. Therefore all issues of governance and rights are manifest in this process. The budget is a critical entry point for addressing a wide range of issues, allowing for the involvement of a wide range of stakeholders in policy dialogues. For that reason, it creates grassroots ownership over national policies by shifting away from the top-down approach. Finally PBA allows the grassroots to understand that citizenship can only be achieved through budget allocation according to people's needs and priorities. Reflect, a participatory and empowering learning and planning process has also been used in budget analysis. In addition to focusing on whether funds in a particular budget are being spent as allocated, the Reflect practitioners are also concerned with the decision-making process in the construction of various budgets and with examining questions of transparency and democracy in relation to budget production. Ruchi Tripathi Food Trade Policy Analyst ActionAid Hamlyn House MacDonald Road London N19 5PG Ph: 44 207 561 7560 ActionAid's vision is a world without poverty in which every person can exercise their right to a life of dignity. Registered Charity No. 274467 www.actionaid.org **DISCLAIMER** This e-mail and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this e-mail in error please notify the postmaster at <address removed>
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